For several years now, the operators of retail media networks have been selling advertisers on the considerable virtues of shopper data — the ability to know, with some precision, who bought the laundry detergent and when they might buy it again.
Now, it seems, they have remembered that advertising also involves the making of advertisements.
Albertsons, the supermarket chain, and Walmart, the supermarket chain that is also many other things, are expanding their retail media offerings to include creative services, according to a report in Adweek. The pitch to marketers is evolving from "we know your customers" to "we know your customers and we can make things for them to watch."
Albertsons has been particularly ambitious in this regard, having introduced in June what it calls its first branded content series. The program, a 22-episode production called "Rico's Tacos," was created in partnership with Procter & Gamble and developed, the company says, using the retailer's proprietary data. (One imagines the data revealed that shoppers enjoy tacos, a finding that will not startle anyone who has visited a supermarket.)
Walmart and Amazon are also offering what advertising buyers describe as compelling creative formats, though the specifics of that compellingness were not detailed.
The development represents something of a full-circle moment for retail media, which began as a way for stores to monetize their customer information and has now expanded to include the production of entertainment content — a business that Madison Avenue has been conducting, with varying degrees of success, since the days of soap operas sponsored by actual soap.
Whether a 22-episode series about tacos, however data-informed, will prove as durable as "Guiding Light" remains to be seen.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Retail Media’s Next Evolution: Getting Into Content"